Seniors Hear History of the I&M Canal

It spanned 96 miles, from Chicago to Lasalle-Peru. It was built starting in 1836, and finished in 1848, with a total cost of more than $6 million. It connected Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River, and before the railroads came to Illinois, it was the best form of freight transportation the state had ever seen.

It’s called the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and for an hour on Tuesday morning at , a group of Montgomery seniors got to hear all about its history. More than that, they got to hear first-hand accounts of what it was like to live and work on the canal, acted out by a pair of history enthusiasts with a love for the I&M.

Jim Carr, of Clarendon Hills, and Andrea Zoelle, of Lockport, are both members of Canallers in the Corridor, a volunteer group that promotes the story of the I&M Canal. There are five of them, Carr said, and they each portray a different historical figure, one who really lived at the time of the canal’s operation.

Carr portrays Timothy James Carr, who started his time as a muleboy (one who makes sure mules don’t plunge into the water) and eventually became a locktender, letting ships through locks in the canal. He came to Chicago in 1848 for the canal’s opening, and worked on it until he died in 1871.

Zoelle, a member of the Will County Historical Society, plays Esther Burdick of Plainfield, a mother of 14 children who moved from New York to see the canal in 1836. A recession hit in 1837, and the state was bankrupt by 1840, so work on the canal stopped, but it picked back up a few years later.

Carr began by asking if anyone in the audience was Irish. When several hands shot up, he said, “I’m sorry,” then went on to explain that the I&M Canal, 60 feet wide and six feet deep at a minimum, was built mainly on the backs of Irish immigrants, making 96 cents a day. And a day, he explained, was “sunup to sundown.”

“More Irishmen died working on the I&M Canal than on the Panama Canal,” he said.

Carr also noted that the expensive canal is one of the reasons the state instituted a property tax. But it was also the attraction that helped give Chicago its reputation as a transportation hub, and helped to bring the railroads to Illinois.

The canal closed down in 1933, and now is used mainly by canoeists. In 1984, Congress designated it the country's first National Heritage Corridor.

Carr and Zoelle’s presentation was part of an ongoing series of senior events presented by the village of Montgomery at no charge. It was followed by the weekly senior luncheon.